I’m Not Going to Shut Up.

Joanna Chen

Profession: Literary Translator, Ela Valley, Israel

Antisemitism is the shadow stretching around the corner; it’s the furtive whispering you hear behind your back, although you do not catch every word. It’s the tiny pause that hangs in a room when you finish speaking and makes you wonder if you said something wrong. It puts you on the defensive. It shuts you up.

But I’m not going to shut up. I write when I have something to say. I choose my words carefully because now I know exactly how they can be twisted, taken out of context, used against me. I’ve moved on.

After my essay on empathy was retracted by its publisher, Guernica, back in March of 2024, after being called disrespectful, after being labeled a white colonialist woman raising murderous children, I found it hard not to take these insults personally.

I believe that many of my critics didn’t bother to read my essay—it was enough for them to know I was Jewish, that I lived in Israel. Nothing else mattered.

So the controversy was not about me—it was antisemitism raising its head under the guise of politics and social justice. It’s not easy, words sting—but I’m resolved to continue working for what I believe in: tikkun olam, repair of the world. I can at least repair in some small way my own corner of the world, a tiny drop in an ocean of suspicion, hatred and misconception. It is this ocean that turns people against each other, that divides us and catalogs us.

History has taught us how lethal antisemitism can be. Current events remind us of this on a daily basis. But I’m going to keep holding out a hand when I can, and I’m going to keep believing that the heart is capable of listening to more than one voice. Life is nuanced.

Last month, I attended the Yetzirah Poetry conference in Asheville, North Carolina. At the airport, I shared an Uber with a woman who had come to Asheville for a few days to study meditation. We got talking, and she asked me where I was from. I hesitated. Often when I go abroad I say I’m from the UK (where I was born), because I’m wary. But this time I answered: Israel. To my surprise, her eyes lit up. That’s a tough place to live, she said. In other words, she didn’t hate me.

Psalm 34 asks who is the person who desires life and loves days. I aspire to be that person. I aspire to be that woman. I’m going to keep on doing what I believe in, including my work with Palestinian children at Road to Recovery. I’m going to read widely, with as many voices and opinions as possible, because I don’t want to be cut off from this world, however broken it is. There is a better way, that we all want a better future for children, free of shadows.